


I've been taking chances (I've been setting myself up for the fall)

by nonagesimus



Category: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Fluff, Prequel, i am bad at tagging still. please forgive me. love wins, i hesitate to tag this as a fix it fic but i am fixing canon you're welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24249547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonagesimus/pseuds/nonagesimus
Summary: What if Sinbad and Marina met and fell in love years ago, when they were still just kids?
Relationships: Marina/Sinbad (Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas), implied Sinbad/Proteus (Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	I've been taking chances (I've been setting myself up for the fall)

He’s sixteen when he first meets the (incredibly annoying) love of his life, although she never learns his name, and, years later, when they meet again, she won’t recognize him. Which makes sense: in the interim he’ll gain probably thirty pounds of muscle, grow a beard, and age into a confident, cocky man who doesn’t much resemble the skinny kid he once was. But right now, he’s that skinny kid, sixteen years old, hair buzzed short, two knives clutched tight in his hands, facing down a gang of thugs who’ve backed him against a wall in a dim, stony alleyway.

She flies in from above like some kind of angel, or devil, or maybe not like anything, maybe she’s just _her_ , maybe there’s nothing you can compare her to. (In the years to come he’ll find himself looking at her dozens of times thinking this same thing: some men look at the one they love and see a flower, or a goddess, but he just sees _her_ and there’s nothing like it.) He sees her shape above on the rooftop, though he only looks at her from the corner of his vision to keep the thugs from noticing too: a girl’s shape up there, outlined by the midday sun and holding a very large rock. Maybe she’s here to help him, maybe she isn’t; he stifles a pained grimace as he hopes it’s the former.

He tries talking; who knows, maybe these fellas are inclined towards a peaceful solution. “Guys. We can talk about this,” he says coaxingly to the three men who have him surrounded. “Right? We can _totally_ talk about this.”

“Nothing to talk about. I want my crowns back,” growls the largest of them, a tattooed and bearded gentleman who, Sinbad estimates, is three times his size. “ _Now_.”

“Now, see, that’s a pretty big assumption. You’re assuming that I stole your coins. _Me_. An innocent, sweet young boy. Why don’t you go after somebody your own size? What makes you think I did it?”

“I don’t know,” says another of the thugs, “how about the fact that the bag of coins is hanging at your waist right now?”

Sinbad glances down. Yeah, fair enough, it is.

“No it’s not,” he says.

“Yes it is. It’s right there.”

“No. That’s not it.”

“That’s my bag of coins,” shouts the largest thug. “I saw you snatch it from me in the marketplace, and it’s right there on your belt. We can see it with our own eyes!”

“Nope,” Sinbad says with a shrug. “Sorry. That’s _my_ bag of coins. Earned it myself. I can see how you got the two confused, they’re kinda similar, but if you look on the—”

“Agh, shut the hell up! Enough games! Give me back my crowns and _maybe_ we won’t beat you all the way to death!”

Sinbad, because he’s Sinbad, has already planned six different routes of escaping this situation, the most viable of which is to simply turn and scurry up the wall (he doubts any of these enormous guys will have the limberness needed to follow him, let alone to do it quickly). If he must, he’ll fight them, but even with his confidence and bravado he doubts he’ll win. “Fake it ‘til you make it” doesn’t exactly work when you’re facing down three gigantic guys in a back alley.

He wishes, uselessly but sharply, that Proteus was here. Hell, they might not even have a greater chance of winning together—Proteus is classically trained with a sword, sure, and they can fight like hellions together, sure, and they’ve won before against worse odds, _sure_ , but Sinbad and Proteus are still two skinny sixteen-year-old kids and their luck isn’t gonna last forever. But just having Proteus here would be a comfort. Because he’s _the_ prince, the heir to the city, and knowing that, these guys would probably back right off—and also because he’s Proteus, and he makes everything seem a little brighter and a little more survivable.

Sinbad isn’t entirely alone, though. That strange girl is still up there high on the roof, brandishing that big rock in her arms. Sinbad’s gaze flicks up to her for just one second, clearing her image a little further in his mind: a dark-haired girl, probably his age, wearing some sort of fancy purple outfit. The thing about her that burns right into him is that _snarl_ , ferocious and battle-ready. It imprints into him like staring directly into the sun. Years later, he’ll be able to remember it clearer than anything else.

Right now, though, he doesn’t know exactly who that snarl’s directed towards, and it sends a thrill of nervousness through him. Okay, he thinks. Huh. Does _she_ want revenge too? He runs through the catalogue of people he’s stolen from in the past little while; no girls like her come to mind, but he could be forgetting. There’s no shortage of people who want to kill Sinbad in this city.

One of the men makes a lunge toward Sinbad before he can react, and then the other two are following. Before he can do anything to fight, they’ve shoved him up against the alley wall, pinning his arms so he can’t use his knives. One brutal punch to his face and he’s dropped both the weapons reflexively; they clatter to the ground, useless. There’s hard stone against his back and a huge hand squeezing his throat. So that’s the climbing-up-the-wall plan ruined, he thinks wryly as he chokes. Good going, Sinbad. Great reflexes.

A rough hand is at his belt, the man yanking away the bag of coins and dangling it in front of Sinbad’s face with his free hand. “I’ll be taking this.”

The hand on his throat doesn’t let up, and before he gets choked into unconsciousness, Sinbad wishes he’d told Proteus—

The girl drops the rock.

To Sinbad’s disappointment, it doesn’t kill anyone or smash anyone’s head. It glances into one of the men’s shoulders, heavily, with a very satisfying meaty thudding noise. The thug yells in surprise and pain. Then, to everyone’s acute shock, _more_ rocks start raining down, one after the other, big chunks of veined white marble that smash hard into the ground and break into a thousand pieces, causing the thugs to jump like trained dancers to escape the downpour. At this point Sinbad is very impressed, if not kind of afraid for his own life.

There’s a lot of cursing and saying the names of various gods as prayers or swears, and the constricting hand has long since left his neck. Sinbad takes generous gulps of air while rubbing his throat, wondering distantly if that’ll bruise later, and, if so, how he’s gonna explain it to Proteus. He’ll probably embellish the circumstances a tad: there were ten, no, _twelve_ men instead of three; they were all built like gorillas; every single one of them had a harpoon; they used some sort of black magic shit to keep him contained, but he managed to fight them off singlehandedly because he’s amazing like that—

The men start shouting more coherently at each other: “Run! Get away from it!” “Who’s doing this?” “Get to the top of that building, don’t let them get away, we’ll rip them limb from limb!”

The men flee, no attention paid to Sinbad, who’s still leaning against the alley wall trying to catch his breath back. After a moment, he leans down and swipes his knives off the ground, lips pressed together in annoyance at himself for being so easily cornered and cowed. Oh, he is _definitely_ going to embellish this story for Proteus later. Assuming he manages to get out of this area of Syracuse alive. He doesn’t think the girl, whoever she was, will have the same luck, but he’s also not particularly willing to trail the thugs to the top of the building and fight for her, half because he doesn’t think he’d be much help at this point, and half because she can probably handle herself.

He does owe her. Though he’ll never tell anybody that a random girl saved his ass in a back alleyway when he couldn’t defend himself. He lifts his head, squints upwards, wondering if he’ll be able to catch a glimpse of—

She’s climbing down. What the hell. She’s climbing down.

This is not, as anyone might guess, a particularly nice area of Syracuse, and the walls of this alley are craggy and misshapen enough that the girl can easily find a foothold here, a handhold there, carefully looking over her shoulder as she steadily descends. When she’s a few feet off the ground she jumps, landing in a crouch in front of him—not a particularly practiced crouch, more an awkward and gangly one; he can tell she doesn’t do this kind of thing often, as confident as she seems. She rises up and grins smugly at him: dark-haired, sharp-smiled, a certain amount of mischief in her eyes.

“Thought you could use a little help,” she says cheerfully.

He falls in love without delay, headfirst and screaming all the way down. If he was a few percentage points worse at disguising his emotions, he’d be staring at her blankly while drooling like a monkey.

Instead, he glares at her. “I was _handling_ it.”

She blinks, a little hurt. “It certainly didn’t _look_ like you were handling it. Shoved against a wall with no weapons and being choked within an inch of your life. I’d say you needed an intervention.”

Her accent, he can’t place it—foreign, but only slightly, as though she comes from somewhere close by. Educated, fancy. Maybe a little haughty. (Maybe a _lot_ haughty.) She’s his age or a little younger, wearing black pants and dark shoes and a flowing purple shirt that screams “expensive”—dye all the way from India, silk from China, he guesses—but damn if she doesn’t look lovely in it.

“I had everything figured out,” he says, trying to inject some breeze into his tone. He saunters around her, circling like a vulture. “I had a plan. I was just about ready to execute said plan. And then _you_ came along, just throwing rocks left and right.” (He’s not flirting. He’s _not_.) “By the way, where in the hell did you get all those?”

The girl shrugs. “The top of that building is really falling apart. Chunks lying around everywhere, just waiting to be thrown. I should speak to someone about having repairs done.”

“Speak to s— _what_? You _own_ this building?”

“I don’t own it,” she says, “but I have… influence.”

“Influence,” he smirks. “I get it. You’re one of those high-born types. I know your style. You think you can waltz around doing whatever you want.” (He is trying very hard to be a dick. He hopes it comes across as convincing.) “Well, guess what: I didn’t need your help, and don’t go thinking I owe you anything, either. I would’ve been fine. I always am.”

She scowls hard, hands curling into fists at her sides. “That’s a fine thank you. Let’s be honest, if I hadn’t come along you would’ve been screwed.”

She’s right, of course.

“Wrong, but if it makes you feel better, sure,” he says jauntily, and pushes past her, making to leave the alleyway.

He hears an incredulous voice behind him. “You’re just going to _leave_?”

Sinbad grins to himself; getting a rise out of her is somehow delicious. He stops short and turns around, lifting his hands. “Well. Yeah.”

“You don’t want to know who I am, or why I saved you, or anything?”

“You didn’t save me,” he mutters, rolling his eyes and turning to leave yet again.

Clattering footsteps behind him and then a hard hand on his shoulder, whirling him around to face her yet again. “I did save you, but I’m really starting to regret it,” she spits.

He wants to kiss her, goddammit, _idiot_ , and it takes effort to not look solely at her snarling mouth. He dials the dickery up to eleven, just to stave the infatuation off a bit (this is what he does when he feels anything: he shoves the feeling away and says mean things to it, just to keep it at arms’ length). “What do you want from me? A medal? Seriously. Thanks for throwing a few rocks, I guess. Are we good? Now shoo. Go away.” He waves a dismissive hand.

Her eyebrows practically meet in the middle. “I don’t know, a genuine thanks might be a start, you arrogant halfwit!”

Sinbad wants to deliver another retort or just walk away, but something stops him, some kernel of goodness that yet remains in his selfish spirit. As is his habit with everyone he feels even a small amount of tenderness towards (which, admittedly, is not a huge number of people). All he can do is blurt, dumbly: “…thanks.”

The girl blinks.

“Thanks,” he repeats, then gives an annoyed groan before he continues. “Thanks for saving me. I wouldn’t have gotten out of there in one piece if it wasn’t for you and your damn rocks. Ya happy now?”

She blinks again, opens her mouth, closes it. “Well,” she says finally. “Like I said. It’s a _start_.”

Her name is Marina, and she won’t stop following him (not that he minds particularly), and she wants to be shown around the city.

“I want to see everything,” she says with a too-earnest smile. “Everything! The marketplaces, the shops, the temples, every street and alleyway, I want to see it all. I want to try everything, taste everything, meet everyone.” She holds her fists against her chest, as if her sheer eagerness might burst out of her. “Can you show me?”

“Uh,” says Sinbad. They’re walking down the street now, _away_ from the previous action, because gods know they don’t want those thugs to find them again. He doesn’t know why he’s still by her side—he also doesn’t know how he’s ever going to tear himself away. “I don’t _know_ everyone, or everything. So I might not be much help in that department.”

“That’s fine. Just show me whatever you can.”

“Syracuse isn’t—it’s not the most interesting place,” Sinbad lies through his teeth. “There’s not much to see around here. Sorry.”

She quirks an eyebrow at him. “You liar. This is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. And we’re not even in one of the wealthier districts.”

It’s true: buildings of cool white marble capped with gold stretch up to the sky all around them, like steadfast watchmen, a cool saltwater breeze tempering the late spring heat, the distant sounds of gulls heralding the closeness of the sea, people milling about peacefully on the street, the faraway happy shrieks of children in the air, and Sinbad thinks he’ll never get tired of this gorgeous town, or of robbing the gorgeous people of this gorgeous town. “And you’ve seen a lot of cities, huh?” he says.

Her gaze lights up. “Athens,” she says, starting to list them off, “Carthage, Rome of _course_ , Byzantium—I didn’t like Byzantium much, funny enough. Pompeii—”

“You’ve been around the block, huh.”

“I’ve been many places,” she allows demurely.

“Where’s your favourite?”

“Alexandroupoli,” she says immediately. “My hometown by the sea.”

“So you’re from Thrace. Interesting.” He taps his chin with a finger as though in thought, as though Thrace means something more to him than any other region does. Which it doesn’t, really.

“I want to be an ambassador one day,” she says, eyes bright. “That’s why I’ve been everywhere. That, and because my father has business in many cities.”

“An ambassador,” Sinbad parrots, judgementally, trying to pretend like he doesn’t desperately want to know more about her.

“Yes. I want to know everything about every culture, whatever I can possibly learn. And then I want to put that knowledge to good use.”

“How old are you?” he says, skeptically.

She glares sudden daggers at him. “Fifteen. You?”

“Sixteen,” he replies, “old enough to know I’m _not_ old enough to know what I want to do with my life.”

“Don’t patronize me,” she says sharply. “I know what I want—I’ve always known what I want.”

“And there’s nothing else you want,” he says searchingly. “Nothing else in the world, just to be a walking encyclopedia.”

“I think that’s a pretty decent calling,” Marina defensively retorts. “And you? You’re going to be a thief on the streets forever, is that it? I don’t particularly think you have any right to judge me.”

“ _Ouch_. But for real, come on. You don’t have any other dreams?”

He sees something in Marina’s eyes, something that catches like a breath in one’s throat, something raw and distant. She shrugs and the moment passes. “I prefer to think of my calling as a duty, rather than something I do for myself. If I live out my dreams, it’ll be in service to Thrace.”

“Very nice answer. Very _composed_ ,” he says, bitingly, clearly not meaning a word of it. “What, did you memorize that off a scroll? Is that the same spiel you give to every aunt and cousin who asks you what you wanna do with your life?”

She pauses in the street, looking surprised. Maybe no one has ever questioned her like this before. “I—yes,” she stumbles over her words, but says them defiantly. “Yes, it’s what I say to everyone, because it’s true.”

“Uh- _huh_.” He stares at her pointedly.

“And you?” She flips the script, hands on her hips. They’re standing in the middle of the cobblestone road now, as merchants call out their wares and people pass them by like fish in a stream. “What do you want to do with yourself? Isn’t there anything?”

Sinbad, not quite knowing why, opts for vulnerability rather than giving her another flippant response. “Well,” he chuckles, suddenly awkward, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. “Me and my friend, we’ve talked about joining the royal navy together.”

“The royal navy?” Her eyebrows raise. “That’s a pretty lofty aspiration for a thief.”

He scowls. “Yeah, thanks for that, I _know_. It’s just a fantasy. It’s probably never gonna happen, and thanks for reminding me, as if I didn’t know already.”

Her lips quirk into a smile at his bitterness. “This is important to you, isn’t it? I knew there had to be something.”

“Yeah, well,” he mutters as they resume walking, “it’s a dream, anyway.”

“And your friend?” she questions. “Is he a thief like you?”

Proteus? He’s the furthest thing in the world. _Like you_... Not even close.

“Nah,” Sinbad says. “He’s a little higher-up than that.”

He hesitates, then asks a question that’s been on his mind since he met Marina. “You’re a nobleman’s daughter, right? You’re important, well-born. Why are you even _here_?” he asks with a piercingly curious gaze straight into her dark eyes. “And why would you bother to take time out of your busy schedule to save a street rat like me?”

“You were in trouble,” Marina says, tilting her head, sounding confused that he’s even asking.

“Yeah, but—” He stops himself, frustrated and suffused with a sudden strange affection. “Thanks,” he says simply, meaning it even more than the last time he said it. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she replies, warmth in her eyes and smile. “As for why I’m here, I needed a break.”

“From…doing noble shit?” he guesses.

“Mm-hmm. From the stuffiness, the decorum, constantly being forced into _boxes_...” In her voice, echoes of bitter frustration. Ah, Sinbad thinks: very interesting. 

Syracuse is a city built on a succession of massive hills overlooking the port and the vast sea beyond, and they’re cresting one of those hills just now, reaching a point where the road seems to drop at a vertical angle and they can see for miles beyond—streets winding labyrinthine through marble and stone buildings that get smaller and smaller to the eye until they end, abruptly, at the blue mouth of the ocean. It stretches out, wild, forever, an eternal horizon. Sinbad is enchanted by it—as always. Marina continues speaking, but he’s surprised to hear in her voice the same sort of enchantment that he feels, awe and wonder. “And I wanted to see this.”

“The sea? You can see that from up there, too, can’t you?” He gestures with a thumb behind them, towards the more noble districts, and, at the very top, the palace.

“Not exactly,” she sighs. “Our rooms are on the northward side. I haven’t seen the ocean since we got here two days ago.”

“And that’s a problem for you,” he says knowingly.

She nods, looking suddenly sad. “I… love the ocean. It’s my favourite place in the world. It always has been.”

Sinbad’s heart gives an odd jump. His face splits into a wide smile. “You love the ocean.”

“Yes…?”

“You love the ocean. Oh, it makes sense now! You don’t want to be an ambassador. Stuck in one place all your life, being all stuffy and political, never doing anything fun, never having an adventure.” He stares at her triumphantly. “You’re like me.”

“Like you?” she says with eyebrows angled suspiciously.

“Yeah, I’m the exact same! I want to be on the ocean, more than anything, always. I want to have my own ship, my own crew. I don’t wanna be stuck in Syracuse for the rest of my life. And I knew, I _knew_ , that you didn’t either. I knew that deep down you were like me.”

She regards him oddly. “If you don’t want to be here, then what’s keeping you here? Family? Responsibilities?”

Oh, he’s said too much. Idiot. “Nah,” he says, “I don’t have much of either of those.”

“Then what…?”

An image surfaces murkily in his mind: the prince of this city, wearing his best sparring clothes, covered in sweat and breathing hard with hands braced on his knees, yet grinning dangerously at Sinbad, that smile holding the promise of another round of sparring the very instant he gets his breath back.

Sinbad shrugs uncomfortably and lies. “I dunno. I guess I could leave anytime I wanted to.”

“Right,” Marina says, unconvinced. “I bet you could.”

They go places together, until it’s late afternoon and the sun hangs low in the sky. Sinbad takes her to his favourite haunts: first, a tiny, dim meat shop where the shop-owner always treats Sinbad to free samples of his wares, because of the time Sinbad saved his daughter Gaiana from robbers (Sinbad then proceeded to court Gaiana for several months before, mostly accidentally, smashing her heart to pieces, a fact he has since neglected to mention to her father). Then he takes Marina to the market square, sauntering around for what feels like hours and also feels like no time at all, sampling everything, smelling the smells of fantastic food, feeling the heavy weight of intricately-patterned carpets under their hands, trying on clothing neither of them has the means to buy, making relentless fun of each other the whole time.

It’s easy, being with her: hard, because she’s constantly frustrating and annoying him, but easy, because he feels like he’s known her a decade instead of a few hours. Which is why he takes her to the knife-throwers. He didn’t take Gaiana to the knife-throwers, or any of his other girlf— _female acquaintances_ , for the gods’ sake; Marina is not his girlfriend and he’d do well to remember it. He hasn’t taken any of his other female acquaintances to the knife-throwers’ booth before, but he takes Marina, because he has the distinct, and oddly affectionate, feeling that Marina will appreciate it well.

(He has the odd, always-conflicting desires to both impress Marina and drive her away: there’s something hauntingly tempting about getting a high-born girl to like him, but he always must remember that Marina’s more important than him, she’s got more power than him, and it’s terribly dangerous to tempt fate by being with someone who’s better than you by birth. Except for Proteus, because Sinbad is entirely incapable of thinking of him that way. Most of the time he just forgets who Proteus is, because Proteus is just Proteus.)

Anyway. He takes Marina to the knife-throwers, where she sits on a stool with legs crossed and eyebrows raised, watching him throw daggers at human-shaped targets pinned on a wooden wall twelve feet away, and he hits them square in the chest, every time. He starts to show off: throws them upside-down and between his legs, throws them over his shoulder, throws them with his eyes closed—hits his target every time, nonetheless. He turns to Marina, smirking. He likes to think the girl has an impressed gleam in her dark eyes.

She leans back, crossing her arms. “So when are you going to let the _professional_ have a go?”

“What, Kadmos?” Sinbad puts on an offended face as he gestures toward the “professional” in question, the old man who runs the knife-throwing booth. Technically he only _sells_ the knives, but if you ask him nicely he’ll throw them too. Kadmos, whose white beard almost reaches the ground and who must be eighty years old if anything, is leaning against a nearby wooden wall looking halfway comatose with his eyes half-closed. “You think that old man can do better than me? I’m hurt. _Hurt_.”

Marina regards him, unimpressed. “Why don’t we find out.”

“What? No, don’t even try talking to him, he only speaks Persian, don’t waste your time—”

But Marina immediately begins conversing with the man in easy Persian, which is how Sinbad learns that she speaks seven languages fluently and another twelve conversationally (as she later tells him, proudly and a bit vainly). Kadmos’s eyes light up at whatever Marina’s saying to him, and as his eyes flick back and forth between them, Sinbad is fluctuating between irritation and admiration: the way Marina so easily charms the old man and makes him break out into uproarious howls of laughter, which Marina mimics. Sinbad doesn’t like the way something bright flares to life in his chest at the sight of Marina cackling with laughter, eyes screwed shut and face contorted in delight.

“I know you guys aren’t laughing at me. Right?” Sinbad says flatly, choosing irritation.

Marina wipes a tear from her eye. “No, of course not,” she says very unconvincingly. “Good news! Kadmos has agreed to demonstrate his talents for us.”

“Oh, is _that_ all. C’mon, why do you want to see him throw knives when you’ve already seen me do it?” (He half means this. Why is he jealous of an old man?) “Besides, he’s practically blind. He’ll probably miss and hit you.”

“Then I guess I’ll die happy,” says Marina with her lips quirked in an odd grin.

That bright hot thing is in his chest again, lighting up quickly and violently as a spark. He can’t think of anything to say to her, just stares at her stupidly. He can’t recall the last time he felt this dumb about a girl, and for basically no reason at all! Except: her smile. Her brilliant dark eyes. The things she says to him. The way she moves. Her intelligence. Her— _her_.

Kadmos throws the knives, expertly, without hitting anything but his targets. But Sinbad isn’t really watching Kadmos; he’s busy watching Marina watch Kadmos, the way her eyes fix intently on the old man as he aims, the way she smiles and whoops in delight when the target is struck. When all’s said and done, she pulls a few gold crowns out of her pocket and purchases two knives from the old man, much to Sinbad’s surprise: one black dagger with fine gold etchings in the metal and a white whale’s-bone hilt that, Kadmos tells her, is so sharp it could cut stone, and a knife with a black hilt and a simple silver blade, etched with a gold symbol at the base.

They walk away from the booth into the marketplace—now with less people milling about, because it’s late afternoon, nearing to twilight, long shadows cast across the square. Sinbad saunters out in front of Marina, walking backwards with hands behind his back. “So, two knives? What, did someone make a threat on your life or something?”

“Several,” she says breezily, “but I trust our guards to handle those.” (He can’t tell if she’s kidding, but he decides not to press the issue.) “Besides…” She flushes, a little, and suddenly can’t meet his eyes. “They’re not for me.”

He blinks. “Huh?”

“One’s for you.” She unceremoniously thrusts out the black-handled knife towards him. “I think you need a little extra protection. Seeing as how the whole city has a grudge against you and all.”

Sinbad takes a moment to regain the power of speech. “That’s true,” he allows, sounding more choked than charming. “They do.”

“So what’re you waiting for? Go on, take it.” She shakes the knife at him, as though he can’t see it.

“Hey, watch where you point that thing.” But he does take it, reverently, holding the blade up in front of his face and admiring how the lowering sun plays against the simple splendor of it. His stomach is churning with butterflies, emotions he can’t readily identify. The gift, despite literally arming him, has also disarmed him in more ways than one.

“This is for me,” he says, lowering the knife and looking her in the eyes.

“Yes,” says Marina, still flushed but now looking confused. “I gave it to you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but. _Why_?” He’s being very serious now; he’s got that look in his eyes, that rare solemn Sinbad look that, for once, doesn’t allow for any joking or playing around.

She shrugs, offering an awkward half-smile. “I don’t know, I… like you. I wanted to give you something nice. I don’t know. Just take it.”

He does, shoving it into his belt, where the weight of it feels like a comforting and discomforting reminder, all at once. “Well, thanks,” he says, smiling at her: thanks doesn’t feel like enough, but for the moment it’s all he’s got.

“You’re welcome,” Marina replies, smiling back, and for a second the world is just them, two kids standing in the middle of the square and smiling strangely at each other as the sun goes down.

Last hurrah, before she inevitably has to go back to her royal life: he takes the would-be ambassador to a grassy hill at sundown. There, they can look out at one of the greatest views the city has to offer: the tower.

They’re up high enough that they can see over the docks, past the bay, across from the palace, where the tower is being built. It’s not completed, yet, but it’s already a grand sight: a thin, straight and graceful tower that spans three hundred feet of handsome white marble, at the top of which, in fifteen years or so, will be contained the most precious object the Twelve Cities calls their own.

“The Book,” Marina murmurs in wonder, “will be there. Right _there_.”

Sinbad, seated beside her on the grass, hums in agreement. “Pretty awesome, right? The most precious object in the entire known world…” He doesn’t let on, of course, that already he dreams of stealing it, dreams of the enormous ransom he could command, dreams of what he could do with those piles and piles of money. He’s got a thief’s heart, deep down, and it informs everything he does.

“It’s been in Alexandria far too long,” Marina says. “Almost a hundred years! Hardly anyone alive in Syracuse has even _seen_ it. It’ll be wonderful to have it on this side of the sea again.”

“Hey, aren’t we meant to share?” he ribs jokingly.

“Well, yes, but… you can’t help but get a little jealous. It’s the _Book of Peace_. I’d be insane not to covet it.” She sighs, her gaze turning distant, as though she sees dark things approaching. “I can’t believe the Twelve Cities have managed to share it peacefully for this long.”

Sinbad can’t either, honestly. The Book is the most valuable thing in the world: a mystical object, purportedly handed down by Zeus himself, that—as long as it’s not damaged, or stolen—keeps things in a supernatural state of harmony and beauty. Buildings don’t crack or collapse. Earthquakes are a thousand times rarer. Volcanoes don’t erupt. People are happier, less prone to warmongering. Things are _better_ , unspeakably so. Its effects are diminished when it’s as far away as Alexandria, but when the Book is _here_ … Well, needless to say, the entirety of Syracuse has been waiting for this, for decades.

She glances at him curiously. “And you? Are you excited to have the Book here?”

He shrugs. “Eh. I don’t think I’ll be here by then.”

“Leaving so soon? I’m not surprised,” she says knowingly. “After all, there’s nothing to keep you here, right?”

“Well…” Sinbad hesitates. “I don’t plan on sticking around forever. Let’s just put it that way.”

He doesn’t intend to continue, but for some reason, he does anyway. “I wanna see the world—see _everything_. I want to have adventures everywhere. Sail across every sea, stake my claim on every island, flirt with every girl, eat every weird food, fight every monster—I want it all.” He lifts his shoulders, a little mournfully. “Syracuse is great, but… I’ve been here a long time. I’ve seen everything.”

“You sound very worldly.” Marina laughs, an oddly bitter thing. “Isn’t that strange? You haven’t been anywhere and you’re more worldly than me.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t say that.”

“That you haven’t been anywhere? Sorry, I just assumed—”

“No, no, you’re right. I haven’t really been anywhere.” He chuckles. “Someday I’ll fix that. But I’m talking about being more worldly than you. You really believe that?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Lemme tell you, I’m not. You speak so many languages, you’ve been to all these different places, it’s _amazing_. I want your life.”

“No, you don’t,” Marina murmurs.

“Well,” he allows, “maybe not so much the part where I’m a royal who gets stuffed into boxes and forced to perform a role in a play I didn’t even audition for. But the rest of it? Sure.”

“What about marrying someone you don’t even know?” Marina blurts it out, as though she didn’t want to say it.

“What?” He blinks at her.

“You heard me. I…” She stops, pressing her lips together hard and staring at the grassy ground under her feet. Abruptly she pulls her knees up to her chest, as if protecting herself. “I might be forced to marry the prince. He’s away now, on some diplomatic trip somewhere, but when he returns in a few days, I get to meet him. Our engagement might be arranged, depending on what our fathers decide.”

“The…the _prince_?” Sinbad demands, mouth flopped open like a stupid fish.

“Yes. Unfortunately,” Marina says with a sour grin. Then, she shakes her head. “I shouldn’t be so stupid about it. It’s a _maybe_ , for now, and for all I know, he’ll be wonderful. I just… I don’t want to marry someone I don’t know. I want to have the freedom to choose. Like you do. Like everyone does. Except us lucky, lucky nobles.”

Sinbad’s still slack-jawed, staring at her like he’s been punched. In shock he stammers: “But—Proteus, he didn’t tell me—”

“Proteus?” She narrows her eyes, angles her head at him. “You know the prince?”

“I…” Sinbad flounders. “Yeah. Kinda.”

To his surprise, Marina smiles. “Tell me about him!”

“I—”

“Tell me,” she insists. “Is he kind, decent at least? What are his interests, his dreams? Tell me everything you know. For the gods’ sake, tell me _something_. I might be forced to spend the rest of my life with this person.”

Sinbad could tell her all these things about Proteus and more: could tell her everything, from Proteus’s exact height to precisely what it says on his astrological chart to the sounds the prince makes during a heated swordfight to the most personal desires he confesses when they’re sitting in their secret hideout under the stars.

Reluctant, he begins with: “…he’s as excited for the Book to get here as you are.” (Proteus hasn’t shut up about it for as long as Sinbad has known him.)

Marina rolls her dark eyes. “That doesn’t tell me much. So’s everyone.”

“He’s… uh, he’s nice,” Sinbad says, hesitantly: _nice_ doesn’t really cover it, but Sinbad doesn’t know how to sum up his favourite person in just a few words, and it’s a struggle for him. “He likes books; he’s interested in law, mostly. Hell, some afternoons he’ll study for five straight hours and even then it’s a struggle to drag him away from those damn books. But he likes sparring, too. Him and me, we’ll swordfight half the day away.” A small smile arises on his face, just thinking about Proteus and their life together.

“You’re a good friend of his,” Marina observes; he can’t read her tone.

“Yeah,” he admits, quietly. “Yeah, we’re friends.”

“Tell me more.”

“He’s… noble. Kind. Heartfelt. He’ll never lie to you, never steer you the wrong way. He’s smart, loyal, he’s—”

(he’s _mine_ )

(The thought bubbles up to the forefront of Sinbad’s mind before he can stop it, and he pushes it away angrily, cursing it for daring to surface at all.)

“He’s a good guy,” Sinbad finishes gracelessly. “You could definitely marry a worse guy.”

“Good to know,” says Marina, but doubtfully. “I just…”

“You want to be free to make your own choice. I get it.” He feels inclined to encourage Marina to run away and never look back, to make her own life by herself. Because that’s what he’d do. (Because Proteus isn’t hers—this thought stays in the back of Sinbad’s mind, even though he doesn’t want it there.)

“I do, but…” She lets out a ragged breath. The dying sun is turning her dark hair to fire as strands of it blow gently in the wind, outlined in gold. “I also want to do my duty. To help our people, however I can. If this is how I can help, by cementing an alliance, then…” She lifts one shoulder. “Sure.”

She pauses a moment then, with surprising vehemence: “But there’s so _much_ in the world, and I can never see everything but I want to see as much as I can. I want to have experiences, I want to sail the seas and, and, and feel the boat rocking under me and balance myself on the rigging and look out into the vastness, look out at everything just spread out in front of me like a buffet, because that’s what the sea is, this big buffet of everything you could possibly imagine, and I want it all, I want _everything_ —”

She stops, frustrated, fists clenched at her sides.

Leaning on one arm he looks at her helplessly, an emotion that he can’t name eddying restlessly inside him. “Well, when you put it that way, marriage sounds like no kind of life,” he says. “For you, anyway.”

“Yeah, well,” she says. “That’s just how it is.”

“I gotta respect you for that,” he smirks at himself. “If I was unhappy, I wouldn’t be able to just lie down and live with it. I’d have to run away. Burst out of my cage.”

“I bet you would,” she says, looking at him with surprising fondness. “You seem like the kind of guy who just—takes whatever he wants, and lives however he wants. No rules.” She tilts her head, curious. “Is that what life’s like for you now? No rules? Living how you want?”

“Yeah, pretty much. No parents, no family—I follow my own path. That’s how I like it.”

“And the prince?”

Something stabs at him, a sharp thing that he can’t name. “Proteus doesn’t tell me what to do.”

“But you’re friends. The crown prince and a thief from the street—friends. You can’t deny, it’s a little odd…”

He laughs, though the edges of it are frayed. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s unorthodox. Dymas has never liked me hanging around. Actually, none of the bigwigs have ever liked seeing me in the palace. I get more filthy looks than I can count. But Proteus says I can stay, so I stay. I visit him all the time, and no one ever gives me any trouble as long as he’s around. It’s kinda nice to see how the other side lives. All marble hallways, jeweled crowns, diamond necklaces, shiny things left and right…”

“Does it ever tempt you?” she asks with a sharp grin.

“Of course. And I’m not gonna lie and say I haven’t swiped a few things.”

“From the royal palace?” Now Marina looks scandalized. “You wouldn’t dare.”

He shrugs, feeling uncomfortably on-the-spot. “Well…yeah. I mean, it’s just there, waiting to be claimed.”

“Those things don’t belong to you,” says Marina, all traces of mirth gone from her. “And never mind that—you’re stealing them from your _friend_.”

“Proteus? What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

She just looks at him, very unimpressed. Sinbad abruptly feels pinned to the spot, and dirty, and like a _thief_. “Anyway,” he says gruffly, “that stuff’s all pawned off now, so it doesn’t matter. Plus, I have to eat, don’t I?”

Her gaze softens. “Yes, I suppose you do. But if you told the prince that you were hungry, wouldn’t he help you?”

“I don’t want handouts. Or charity,” Sinbad says, scowling.

“Right,” says Marina skeptically. “And…do you even have anyone else, other than him?”

Sinbad meets her gaze, and feels caught there. Sure, he’s got people he hangs around with, a rotating circle of acquaintances and partners-in-crime, but friends? Family? People he _trusts_? Not so much.

He opens his mouth, wanting to say something snarky and careless, but what comes out is the raw truth. “It’s…easy to lose people. Easiest to never find them in the first place. That’s my philosophy anyhow.”

There’s a lot of hurt in those words, a lot of old stories that Sinbad isn’t prepared to tell just yet. Marina seems to understand this, and she nods, giving him a look of sympathy. She doesn’t say anything, though, and he feels a surge of fierce gratefulness towards her for it.

“And you?” he asks after a moment of uneasy peace. “Who’s your family?”

“Oh, I’ve got a mother, father, aunts and uncles, cousins… it’s always a full house back in Thrace. And I have friends in every city on the Mediterranean. I’m never lonely.”

“Never?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

Marina raises her own dark eyebrow right back at him, then rolls her eyes. “Okay, you got me. I’m sometimes lonely. But I’m good company by myself, too.”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. You seem—fun.” It’s disgustingly earnest. Not a hint of sarcasm.

The girl regards him with her sea-deep dark eyes. He sees the entire ocean in there. “You know something? You seem like fun too.”

Sunset: he walks her back into the city proper, and at the corner of two streets they get ready to part.

“Headed back to the palace?” he asks her, trying not to sound like a lovesick puppy.

“Yup. I’ve probably been missed already,” she admits with a laugh. “But what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“And then, in a few days, you meet the prince.” He can’t stop his words from twisting into bitterness just a touch—he feels so strange about the whole situation, about Proteus potentially being engaged, about Proteus not telling him about being engaged, about losing Proteus to this girl…and, if he’s honest with himself, about losing this girl to Proteus.

It’s a mess. His best bet is not to think about it too hard.

“Yes. In a few days, I meet the prince,” Marina sighs in affirmation. “But all I can do is make the best of it. If we’re to be engaged. Try to love him, as best I can.”

“He’s not hard to love,” Sinbad says, blurts really, a very stupid thing to say, but it can no more be taken back than a tide can be rolled back out to sea once it’s hit the shore.

Marina arches an eyebrow. “I can tell from the way you talk about him,” she says with a knowing smile. “But anyway. I should go.”

In another world and timeline, Marina does go now: peacefully they part ways, Sinbad back to his life of thievery and Marina back to her life in the palace, and things end there. But in this world, just as Sinbad and Marina are preparing to head in separate directions, a voice from down the empty darkened street halts them in their tracks.

“You! I’ve been looking for you!”

Sinbad, mournfully, stretches the words “Oh boy” out to comic lengths.

It’s the thug whose gold coins Sinbad stole earlier today, so long ago that it feels like it never happened at all, and he looks unhappy to say the least. “Boys!” he yells, no doubt summoning his equally merry friends. “We got ’em!”

Without further ado, Sinbad grabs Marina’s sleeve and begins dragging her along down the street, their feet thumping into a staccato rhythm as they run for their lives.

(Neither of them know it yet, but decades later, when they’re in each other’s lives again, this will be a pattern they repeat dozens and dozens of times: fleeing from their enemies, hand in hand.)

Their hands lace together as they sprint; her hand’s a beautiful weight in his own, fitting perfectly as though it was meant to be there all along. Sinbad can hear shouting behind them; he’s not sure if it’s getting closer, but he _is_ sure that almost nobody in Syracuse can run faster than him, so if these morons think they’re going to catch him without a fight, they’ve got another thing coming.

“Where are we going?” shouts Marina beside him.

“I dunno yet! I’m thinking!”

“Think faster!” There’s fear in her voice.

It’s true that he can’t keep running straight down the street forever, so Sinbad starts looking left and right wildly for an exit as he sprints, ignoring the puzzled looks of passersby. Vaguely from somewhere behind him, he can hear various curses and epithets and variations on “We’re going to get you” emanating from their pursuers. He lunges toward the first open door he sees, dragging Marina with him (despite her protests), and inside they go, ignoring the confused shouts of whatever family lives in this house. Their feet thump up the wooden staircase, and then another, and soon they’re emerging, blinking in the fire of the sunset, on the roof.

Sinbad hears very unhappy shouts and yells from behind. He glances over at Marina, who is staring at him wild-eyed.

“You good at jumping?” he asks casually.

“J—Jumping? Wh—”

“Just follow my lead.” With that he squeezes her hand hard and breaks out in a run toward the edge of the flat-roofed building.

“What? _What_?” Marina sounds panicked, but there’s no time for panicking: hand-in-hand they leap across the gap between buildings, landing hard on the roof of the next one.

He doesn’t allow a moment for either of them to breathe before they’re running again, on to the next building, and the next, while the sky stretches above them like a darkening carpet of fire-red and navy-blue and ink-black. Angry shouting and general thumping behind them: apparently the thugs are following. Something goes whistling by his ear and lodges in the roof just ahead of them; as they dash by it, Sinbad sees it’s a very sharp knife. Charming.

“Do you have a _plan_?” Marina screeches incredulously in his ear.

“I’m working on it!”

“Work harder!” Another projectile, another near-miss; Sinbad doesn’t have time to verify if this one too is a knife, but he’s pretty certain.

“I’m— _formulating_! Figuring out the variables and—”

Something strikes him in the back—thank the gods not a knife—and he stumbles, but Marina drags him along without hesitating and he doesn’t fall. “Shit, that was close!”

“Uh, roof?” She points ahead of them, eyes wide with terror.

The flat rooves in a straight line are quickly ending: ahead of them is a building with a spired roof, blocking their way.

Sinbad looks to their right: the street, far below. To the left—

It drops.

It _drops_. The buildings set on a sheer cliff, heading down to the ocean, far below.

Sinbad has an awful, awful idea, which Marina is going to hate fiercely.

He abruptly breaks free from her hand, diving to the left. Marina, horrified, stops in her tracks: “What are you doing?”

He reaches down—to a line stretched between two buildings across the street, holding shirts and towels and other items of laundry, swaying quietly in the evening breeze. He yanks on the line hard—it detaches from the building on the other side, sending the laundry to the ground with a thump—and reels it in as fast as he can, hoping for something good. To his delight, a huge, lightweight brown cloth comes up, tangled in the line. Kneeled at the edge of the roof, he makes quick work of freeing it. It sticks, tangles, won’t come free, so with desperation he whips out the knife Marina gifted him and starts fraying the line with it. Success! He knew that knife would save his life one day. (What he doesn’t know yet is that, in the years to come, it’ll both save him and damn him many times over.)

Marina screams at him, “They’re almost _here_ what the hell are you _doing_ we have to go go go go go go _go_!”

Indeed, he can hear thumping footsteps and triumphant yells quickly approaching as the men who’re pursuing them leap across roofs toward them. Oh, well. He’ll be gone soon anyway—one way or another.

He gets up and dashes to Marina, looking into her terrified blue-black eyes for just a moment.

“Don’t think, just jump.”

Then he grabs her hand and they do.

For a moment everything’s just this, suspended in time: wind whistling in his ears, Marina screaming beside him, the sea far below, churning in the sunset. He pulls Marina to him hard, yells at her to grab on, and although he’s got no way of ensuring she hears him over everything, she does lace one arm around his neck and fist the other hand tightly in his shirt as they fall together. Sinbad is still holding the brown cloth, and thank the gods for that: it’s what’ll save them. He bunches the ends together, tightly, in each of his hands, and thrusts his hands up over his head with the cloth in them, and prays to every god he knows that this will work.

For a stomach-dropping moment, he thinks it won’t: then, it does. The cloth catches on the air and, with a great woosh, opens up above them. They’re jerked out of their fall together, and suddenly the whistling rushing air is gone, Marina’s screams are gone, everything is gone but the gentle wash of the waves far beneath them and the furious screams of the thugs far above, who are watching them go.

Marina’s clutching the thin material of his shirt so tight that he can feel her nails digging into him through the fabric. “I’d say that went pretty well,” he says nonchalantly, trying to pretend like his heart isn’t pounding so hard it might break into pieces.

“Uh-huh,” says Marina tremulously, her arm tightening around his neck.

Although they survive, they unfortunately still have to land in the ocean, and they still have to get very wet. A while of swimming and a few well-aimed curses from Marina later, they drag themselves, coughing and sputtering, onto a small sand beach at the very edge of Syracuse, where they both flop and lay on their backs side by side, breathing hard. The sky is near-black above them now, most traces of the sunset gone; the moon, full high above, is all that lights their way.

Sinbad angles his head toward Marina. Her dark hair is wetly plastered against her moon-white face, paler than death in the dark, but she turns toward him and her mouth coils into a wide, keen smile.

She lets out a cleansing breath. “I just almost died,” she says, “and also, that was the most fun I’ve ever had. I mean. _Ever_.”

For years Sinbad’s mantra has been: _I am not in love with Proteus._ Now, matters abruptly shift; a fierce affection wells up in him, and he blinks hard and tries his best to tamp it down. He leans his head back in the sand, stares hard at the starry sky, and repeats firmly to himself: _I am not in love with Proteus’s potential fiancée_.

It’s just as convincing the second time around, which is to say, not at all.

When they climb their way back up to the city, their goodbyes are simple but heartfelt. Then, Marina goes home to the palace. Sinbad, too, trudges back to his digs, which, at the moment, comprises of a small nook of stolen blankets and pillows on the top floor of a crumbling abandoned building. There he lies with his arms crossed behind his head and stares up at the night sky through a hole in the roof, and wonders if he will ever see Marina again.

It occurs to him that he never gave his name. Then again, she never asked it, either. Maybe the name of a street rat doesn’t matter to her.

Maybe he’ll never see her again; maybe he’ll see her tomorrow—and maybe she’ll get married to Proteus and he’ll see her every day for the rest of their lives. As Proteus’s wife. The thought makes Sinbad feel uncomfortably sick, in a complex way he’s not quite ready to name. The events of the day have left him thrilled and happy, yes, but—sad, too. Sad.

He rolls over onto his side, scowling, and tries to forget everything and lose himself to sleep. Tomorrow he’ll probably have to deal with those same thugs again, and he’s gotta be well-rested for that. Another day of grinding in Syracuse.

He doesn’t see her tomorrow—he doesn’t see her for three years, and Proteus doesn’t mention her, and Sinbad slowly allows himself to relax, to believe that Marina and the specter of an engagement have vanished from their lives, though he feels guilt over the comfort the thought gives him. And he misses her fiercely, misses those black eyes and the mischief in them, misses a girl who longs for the sea.

He and Proteus continue together. Closer than brothers, spending all their time together, sparring until they can’t breathe or stand up for their exhaustion, mocking each other with the easy disdain of best friends, running through the streets like hellions (when the prince’s responsibilities permit), climbing walls and causing mayhem (okay, Sinbad usually causes mayhem while Proteus watches disapprovingly). And every day that they spend together, Sinbad feels more of a claim on him. _Mine_. Though he would never admit that to himself. And much less to the prince.

Then one day, Proteus tells him with bright and exhilarated eyes that he’s to be engaged, and Sinbad’s stomach drops out from underneath him—and then, the very next day, Sinbad stands in the crowd at the docks and watches a majestic ship pull into port, watches Marina, older, dressed formally, more beautiful than ever, step onto the dock and take the prince’s hand, and at that moment Sinbad decides that the time has never been better for him to run away.

The thought of losing Proteus—the thought of losing Proteus to _her_ , of losing _her_ to _Proteus_ —of losing _everything_ — Sinbad has never felt hurt like this, and it’s a wildly frustrating wound, because he can’t even give it a name.

He packs his few belongings and abandons everything—the city, Proteus, dreams of joining the navy together, dreams of a life together where they didn’t have to lose each other to engagements, to responsibilities, where they could remain boys forever. That life is gone, a wisp in the past. Within a day, and without saying a word to anyone, Sinbad’s gone: established himself as a lowly cabin boy on the first departing ship he could find, and sailing fast to the south, bound far, far, far away from Syracuse.

Decades later, at midnight on the deck of his own ship, when Sinbad asks Marina “Is it the shore or the sea?”, he already knows the answer.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!


End file.
